Sunday, 31 August 2003

POSSIBILITIES

we're familiar enough with the possibility that bushallowed 9/11 to occur, or even actually orchestrated it in an operation northwoods style. an anxious and de-stabilised population are easy prey for oppressive lawmakers, while war and corporatism are age old lovers, and lets not forget that the foundation of advertising is its vampiric reliance upon consumer insecurities. but meanwhile it is also equally possible that a simultaneously 'beneficial' strategy is being played out by al-qaeda themselves. here Isa F. Atkins lays out that possibility:

"The fundamental difference between the US government and al-Qaeda is not in their ideology. Both entities are guided by militant terrorism. What sets them apart is that, unlike the bewildered and incompetent Bush Administration, al-Qaeda is consistent and follows a coherent and executable plan. The recent bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad was part of this coherent strategy.

As soon as the World Trade Center towers collapsed, on September 11, 2001, the farsighted among us immediately realized that the militants' foremost long-term intention was to draw Americans to where they could be dealt with. That was calculated. It is unreasonable to believe that the perpetrators of 9-11 believed that the United States would not attack their organizational base in Afghanistan. In fact, they hoped for an attack."

"The big game started when the trigger-happy US administration, encouraged by the comfortable military victory in Afghanistan -officially one of the word's poorest, most disabled nations- decided to invade Iraq"

"The plan, which was conceived long before 9-11, is now fully operative. First and foremost, there is the incessant supply of anti-US propaganda in the Iraqi press, which is consumed daily by millions of news-thirsty Iraqis. Second, there is the equally incessant urban warfare attacks on occupying troops, as a means of implanting fear, hampering their morale and faith in their mission. Third, there was the bombing of the Jordanian Embassy -a clear message to US-friendly Arab states to refrain from any involvement in the occupation of Iraq. Fourth, there was the massive bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad.

This latter component has evidently confused many. Why would the anti-US militants want to target the only constructive presence in Iraq, an organization whose very operational mission is to help transfer Iraqi administration from the US occupying forces to local Iraqis?

The answer is to be found in that very mission statement. The last thing al-Qaeda wants to see right now is the battered Americans preparing to leave Iraq and handing the country's administration to the UN and local Iraqis. Remember, the whole aim of this operation is to bring the American forces close to where they will be approachable and vulnerable. The United Nations strives against this potentiality. As such, it has become a clear and legitimate target.

At the same time, al-Qaeda's militants are sending a firm message to other European or Asian nations who have sent, or are contemplating sending, troops to Iraq. They see no worthwhile purpose in facing Japanese, Polish, Hungarian, or Ukrainian troops (India and Australia have been singled out by al-Qaeda before and are possible exceptions). The message to them is therefore clear: "Leave us alone with the Americans. It is them we want. You stay out of the ring before it turns really bloody".

And, wouldn't you know, it's working. European nations who had indicated they might send troops under a UN administrative mandate, are now saying that they will do no such thing regardless of any UN resolution."(news insider)

plus: 'Al Qaeda and What It Means to Be Modern' by John Gray"Far from being a throwback to medieval times, the fundamentalism of Al Qaeda is an entirely modern response to the world. Gray argues that September 11 destroyed the idea of globalization as a single pathway to modernity. He also considers the rise and decline of the global free market, the pretensions of economics, the metamorphosis of war and the prospects of an American empire."

"Neither during the war nor during the previous two wars has this happened," said Dr. Qais Hassan Salman, a specialist in forensic medicine at the Institute. "The number of dead is absolutely unbelievable, and I'm just speaking of Baghdad alone. God knows what's happening elsewhere."

The anonymous e-mail offered $5,000 to any vendor capable of promptly delivering a collection of gadgets for conducting time travel. Among the mysterious devices sought by the message's author were an "Acme 5X24 series time transducing capacitor with built-in temporal displacement" and an "AMD Dimensional Warp Generator module containing the GRC79 induction motor."(via linkmachinego)

Saturday, 30 August 2003

UPDATE: STEVE GOUGH'S NAKED WALK, LAND'S END TO JOHN O' GROATS

an update on his site dated aug 25 reads:
"steve is being held in a 9'x11' isolation cell in inverness prison. to date he will have been alone for 6 days. he is refusing to dress, he is denied exercise,social contact, phonecalls."

a later update article from the herald dated aug 27 reads:
"Steve Gough was released on bail......His trial at Inverness is due to take place on January 7."

The noggle a mischievous creature in the British isles that isn't really a horse. It looks like a little gray horse with a saddle, but if someone gets on, it dashes into the water where it turns into a burning, blue cloud. The Noggle is also a pest if there are mills around, because it keeps the mills wheels from turning. Sticking a long knife into a hole in the wheel should start it turning again.

Bad Toon RisingBad Toon Rising is a collection of drawings of well-known cartoon characters produced by amateur artists entirely from memory and without any reference materials whatsoever. We can all picture what Mickey Mouse or the Pink Panther look like in our minds, but getting that image down on paper is another matter!
(via b3ta)

the 10 commandments"The first four of the commandments have little to do with either law or morality, and the first three suggest a terrific insecurity on the part of the person supposedly issuing them. I am the lord thy god and thou shalt have no other ... no graven images ... no taking of my name in vain:"

"It's obviously too much to expect that a Bronze Age demagogue should have remembered to condemn drug abuse, drunken driving, or offenses against gender equality, or to demand prayer in the schools. Still, to have left rape and child abuse and genocide and slavery out of the account is to have been negligent to some degree, even by the lax standards of the time."

"the true problem is a failure to recognize that religion is not just incongruent with morality but in essential ways incompatible with it."(via plastic bag)

Talks impasse threatens cheap drugs dealA deal to provide cut-price copies of life-saving drugs for the world's poorest people was on the brink of collapse yesterday in Geneva, after developing countries objected to a last-minute compromise worked out to pacify the US pharmaceuticals industry.

A marathon session of negotiations ended early yesterday morning with no deal amid bitter recriminations and accusations of sabotage. "You have rich white people telling African countries what is good for them," said one senior trade source.

some trade experts said rich countries had made the mistake of thinking they could neutralise developing country grievances on a wide range of issues with a PR triumph over drugs when, they say, the deal leaves significant hurdles in the way of countries wanting to import cheap copies.

"The deal is worth so little to the developing world that they don't want the EU and the US to get the kudos for it," said one analyst. "They don't want the west to create the impression that it has done enough on developing country issues."

In Iraq, Labor Protest is a Crime"war makes privatization easy: first you destroy the society and then you let the corporations rebuild it."
On July 29, US occupation forces in Iraq arrested a leader of Iraq's new emerging labor movement, Kacem Madi, along with 20 other members of the Union of the Unemployed. The unionists had been conducting a sit-in to protest the treatment of unemployed Iraqi workers by the US occupation authority, and the fact that contracts for work rebuilding the country have been given overwhelmingly to US corporations.

The unemployment rate is over 50% in cities like Baghdad. The new union for unemployed workers has become the fastest-growing, largest labor organization in the country as a result. Iraqi workers must be able to form unions of their own choosing. "Prior to its suppression by the Hussein regime, Iraq enjoyed a robust and broadly representative labor movement," the report concludes. [The pre-Hussein government was overthrown in a 1956 cold-war coup organized by the Central Intelligence Agency.

the corporations who have been granted contracts for work in Iraq by the Bush administration have long records of fighting unions and violating labor rights. a USLAW report discusses the track record of social responsibility of the corporations involved. It found a long history of corporate corruption and bribery. These corporations were chosen by the Bush administration, which itself is considered by many as the most anti- worker, union-hostile administration in modern U.S. history. This does not bode well for respect of workers rights in Iraq."

US clandestine spending highest in 16 years"Black," or classified, programs requested in President Bush's 2004 defense budget are at the highest level since 1988, according to a report prepared by the independent Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

"It sets the mind to wondering where the money's going and what sort of politically controversial things the administration is doing because they're not telling anybody," said John E. Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org.

Friday, 29 August 2003

AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY AND THE LEGACY OF KISSINGER

CHILE
"I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go Communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people. thus spoke henry kissinger, the man who encouraged the overthrow of chile's DEMOCRATICALLY elected government and the murder of General René Schneider, a staunch defender of Chilean democracy (....The United States furnished tear-gas grenades, machine guns and, later, hush money to right-wing gangsters, who assassinated General Schneider.) bringing into power and supporting the bloody reign of general pinochet. apart from the death toll, the CIA-sponsored coup provoked an era of skyrocketing inflation and national debt, with drastic increases in unemployment, poverty, and hunger. and interestingly immediately after the military coup, General Motors, which had closed its plants after Allende's democratic election, resumed operations, affirming how much more comfortable Big Capital is with fascism than with any kind of social democracy.

EAST TIMOR
similarly concerning indonesia's barbaric invasion of east timor in 1975, after kissinger and president ford gave Indonesian President Suharto the go ahead,kissinger has responded to the fact that u.s. law prohibited jakarta from using u.s. supplied weapons for anything other than self defence with the line "And we can't construe a Communist government in the middle of Indonesia as self defense?" 10 percent of the population of East Timor, some sixty thousand people had been killed by the Indonesian murderers in the first weeks of the invasion.In the late 1970s, some 200,000 East Timorese—more than a quarter of the population—died under the ferocious Indonesian assault, made possible by U.S. weapons. Kissinger and Ford made sure the money and armaments to carry out this genocide never ceased flowing from the US and its allies, a policy continued by every succeeding US administration, up to and including Clinton's.

VIETNAM
during the tight u.s. presidential race in 1968 (between Vice President Hubert Humphrey, a Democrat, and Republican challenger Richard Nixon) at the Paris peace negotiations, the Johnson administration was on the brink of a critical breakthrough to end the war in Vietnam. Nixon set out to sabotage those talks by secretly offering the South Vietnamese “more” than they would get from the incumbent Democrats. Through “back channels,” nixon urged Saigon’s ruling clique to resist the settlement being negotiated at Paris. On November 1, Johnson ordered a bombing halt — a gesture that signaled the breakthrough — but he had already been checkmated behind the scenes. Nixon’s linchpin in all this had been Henry Kissinger, who, at the time, was considered a trusted ally of Johnson emissary Averell Harriman, leader of the Paris talks. The result of kissinger's betrayal of the Paris peace talks was four more years of an unwinnable and dirty war, which was to spread before it burned out, the deliberate massacres of tens of thousands of Vietnamese civilians, the needless sacrifice of 32,000 additional American troops and uncounted opposition guerrillas and North Vietnamese regulars, and it was to end on the same terms and conditions as had been on the table in the fall of 1968.

CAMBODIA
The millions of Cambodians who died beginning in 1970 -- and continue to die today -- did not perish simply because a single madman seized power in their country. The Americans encouraged Sihanouk's overthrow and drove Cambodian peasants into the arms of the Khmer Rouge by one of the most intense bombing campaigns ever recorded -- and then invaded the country in 1970

in 1973 U.S. B-52s pounded Cambodia for 160 consecutive days, dropping more than 240,000 short tons of bombs on rice fields, water buffalo, villages (particularly along the Mekong River) and on guerrilla troop positions, a tonnage that represents 50 percent more than the conventional explosives dropped on Japan during World War II. This constant indiscriminate bombing was of course carried out against a peasant society with no airforce or ground defenses. The Finnish government study estimates that 600,000 people died in this first phase alone,

BANGLADESH
Kissinger’s refusal, in 1971, to condemn Pakistan’s genocidal invasion of Bangladesh because the Pakistanis were a conduit for Nixon’s secret diplomacy with China; “his decision to do nothing . . . therefore a direct decision to do something, or to let something be done”

IRAN
In May 1972, just twenty-four hours after agreeing in Moscow to a set of basic principles on U.S.-Soviet relations that committed both nations to minimizing international tensions, Nixon and his National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger were in Teheran offering to sell the Shah any U.S. weapons he wanted -- other than nuclear weapons. Over the next seven years, the U.S. sold $21 billion worth of arms to Iran, compared to $1.2 billion in the previous 22 years. Iran became the largest U.S. arms recipient in the world, buying the latest U.S. aircraft, as well as destroyers more advanced than those being produced for the U.S. Navy. The Shah's Gulf policy, which was received very favourably by the West, did not fail to make its impact on neighbouring Iraq. Between 1973 and 1980, Iraq's armed forces doubled in size and the number of armored and mechanized divisions grew four-fold.

IRAQ
By 1980, the U.S. embassy hostage crisis had turned Iran into an international pariah. Neighboring Iraq, seeing an opportunity to finally even the score with its regional foe, invaded Iran. for most of the war the U.S. tilted heavily toward Iraq. The Reagan administration secretly provided arms to third countries (mainly Egypt, Jordan, and Kuwait) for transfer to Iraq and helped broker billions of dollars of European weapons sales to Baghdad. Additionally, Washington winked when Iraq bought U.S. helicopters, claiming they were for "recreation," and Nixon administration veterans arranged a deal to provide Iraq with Romanian military uniforms. For two years of Iraqi chemical warfare use, the UN Security Council did not criticize Iraq by name; later the U.S. made clear that it would oppose any Council action against Iraq. By the end of the iran-iraq war, chemical weapons had become fully integrated into Saddam Hussein's armed forces, with apparently no effect on the U.S. tilt toward Iraq. Then Baghdad turned its military might on its own Kurdish minority and used chemical weapons against them. Members of Congress called for sanctions on Iraq, but the u.s. administration opposed the move. however U.S. assistance did not go only to Iraq. The Reagan administration also covertly provided Iran with anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles, as well as intelligence information -- until the Iran-contra revelations blew the cover on the operation. The result of funnelling aid to both sides, of course, was the prolongation of the war.

the bigger the crime the smaller the penaltyNearly three years after the U.S.-backed coup that overthrew the elected socialist president Salvador Allende in September 1973 and brought Augusto Pinochet to power, Kissinger told Pinochet: "We are sympathetic with what you are trying to do here."

While interviewing Kissinger more recently, "NewsHour" correspondent Elizabeth Farnsworth asked him point-blank about the discussion with Pinochet. "Why did you not say to him, 'You're violating human rights. You're killing people. Stop it.'?"

Kissinger replied: "First of all, human rights were not an international issue at the time, the way they have become since. That was not what diplomats and secretaries of states and presidents were saying generally to anybody in those days."

When Henry Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973, the distinguished musical satirist Tom Lehrer decided that he could no longer perform. "It was at that moment that satire died," says Lehrer, "There was nothing more to say after that."

the US, naturally, is not obliged to give up kissinger to the docks of an international court on crimes against humanity, and he is instead living well and repectably as an honored citizen. he gets a Nobel Peace prize, is an honored member of national commissions, and is a favored media guru and guest at public gatherings. In 1989, he was elected to the board of directors of CBS. and the most influential news outlets continued to treat Kissinger with near-reverence. Napoleon observed that it's not necessary to censor the news, it's sufficient merely to delay the news until it no longer matters.

being a "world leader" means that america will maintain the global system of free market investment and profit accumulation. successive administrations in Washington have supported some of the worst right-wing counter-revolutionary rebel cut-throats ever known and armed some of the world's most vile and repressive regimes. Far from supporting democracy around the world, the U.S. national security state since World War II has actively destroyed progressive democratic governments in some two dozen countries. U.S. military spending remains at a level far above the height of Cold War levels (even after adjusting for inflation).

the closet is a luxury that all other historically invisibilised and badly represented social groups don't have as an option. it is a cousin of that old joke "support the police, beat yourself up."

the fundamental building blocks of the closet are self-hatred, self oppression and collusion with those who commit acts of extreme violence against lesbians and gay men. the notion of privacy concerning a person's sexual preference is an illusion. a cowardly and selfish falsehood.

the closet is collusion with the concept of being something-that-is-wrong.

the ONLY reason not to be entirely open about your sexual preference is FEAR. fear of losing friends and family. fear of losing your job. fear of having excrement posted through your letterbox and fear of violence. but perhaps most importantly it is the fear that you yourself might be somehow less than human when compared with your heterosexual peers. as that old bore quentin crisp once wrote "even the lowest heterosexual is superior to the highest queer," or some such.

post-modern discussions about protean identity and the likleyhood that no-one is actually 100% gay or straight remains an academic luxury. a gay identity is only really a political identity, but political identities are what black and disabled people are born into with nowhere to hide.

many "out and proud" homosexuals continue to nurture deeply embedded splinters of self loathing. a lifetime of daily poisonous information and the absence of ordinairy positive representation in daily life creates a deep wound that at best only ever scabs over .....thus the high degree of alcoholism/suicide/regular off-your-tits drug use and anonymous bare-backing within the gay consumer-community, not to mention the polite self-policing habit of never kissing or holding hands in public.

while queers continue to be murdered, and while suicide amongst young gay men continues to be disproportionately high (even among the disproportionately high level of suicide amongst all young men) then prominent role models and media voices will always be needed. currently they still barely exist. and even if it is hypocritical of some ex-closet case celebrities to be rattling the cage bars of other high earning celebrity scaredy-cats, it is still right for them to rattle away. role models and visibility are vital. competing information is everything in our world. like fish in water, information-war is the inescapable immersant of all human existence.

i was going to include a list of anti-gay links, but they're mostly religous psychos which too easily distorts the reality towards an impression of extremism alone. the truth is that most hate crimes are carried out by ordinairy otherwise law-abiding young people who see little wrong with their actions. they perceive that they have societal permission to engage in violence against homosexuals.

to people who are unaffected by/unaware of the daily slights and barbs of living in a heterosexual dictatorship it might seem as though gay liberation has suceeded. the struggle is over. but all that has so far suceeded is the commercial commodification of a singularly antiseptic middle-class version of same-gender preference. it might also seem as though queer liberation is a western triviality compared with the suffering in the world. but oppression is oppression in any form. hatred kills. intolerance of diversity along with embedded self loathing are primary symptons of a fucked-up and enslaved human race.

in truth the broader picture is that homophobia is plain old sex-phobia, and sex-phobia is among our most virulent of human diseases. yet one more simultaneous frontline battle to be fought.

Wednesday, 27 August 2003

Osschaart is a figure from Flemish folklore bearing an uncanny resemblance to Kludde and Lange Wapper. He jumps on the backs of passers-by, mostly drunkards, hindering their movement. He can take the shape of any animal he wishes, although his original form is said to be of a bull with a man's head and chains in his hands. His presence could be detected by the sound of rattling chains.

Tuesday, 26 August 2003

america is a country where, a Harris poll showed, 94% of adults believe in God, 86% believe in miracles, 89% believe in heaven, and 73% believe in the devil and hell.

White evangelicals and black Protestants are the two groups most likely to say that their religion shapes their votes at least occasionally, according to a survey by the non-partisan Pew research centre. Since these two constituencies form the cornerstone of both major parties, it would be impossible for either to win an election without them and inconceivable that they could do so without the support of the church.

Another Pew poll revealed that 48% of Americans think the US has had special protection from God for most of its history.

Fundamentalists deal with absolutes. Their eternal certainties make them formidable campaigners and awful negotiators

America's religiosity is not something it shares with even its few western allies, let alone the many countries that oppose its current path. Yet another poll shows that among countries where people believe religion to be very important, America's views are closer to Pakistan's and Nigeria's than to France's or Germany's.

these fundamentalist tendencies in US diplomacy have rarely been stronger in the White House than they are today. Since George Bush gave up Jack Daniels for Jesus Christ, he has counted Jesus as his favourite philosopher. The first thing he reads in the morning is not a briefing paper but a book of evangelical mini- sermons.

a microorganism, designated strain 121, which grows at temperatures higher than previously reported for any organism. Surprisingly, strain 121 grows at 121 °C (250 °Fahrenheit), the temperature used in sterilization systems, such as autoclaves, to prepare microbe-free equipment and media. This temperature was previously thought to kill all living organisms.

Micro-robots capable of manipulating human cells are no more than a year away, scientists have claimed. the so-called 'microactuators' use special metal alloys that return to a 'memory' state when heated.

They eliminate the need for chips, batteries, and other bulky devices, allowing for devices that can be miniaturised to the low-micron range. When a scanning electron microscope or a laser heats up the shape-memory alloy elements in the micro-robots, it allows them to grip and manipulate nanoscale objects.
(via wired)

A three-year project has received funding to develop a self-aware robot, advance the technology of machine intelligence and shed light on the nature of consciousness.

Because most of what we know about consciousness comes from studies on visual experience and imagination, the researchers are devoting a significant portion of their energy to developing parts of the robot's brain that are involved in vision. the team plans to create a complex environment in which the robot will have to "imagine" different actions before choosing one.

a DARPA ( Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency)-sponsored conference was held in Washington, DC, that showcased the latest love child of the Bush Pentagon: military bioengineering.

The 'Brain Interface Program' is the most lavishly funded of nearly all the DARPA bioengineering efforts (the project has been given $24 million for the next two years). It is aimed at developing ways to 'integrate' soldiers into machines -literally- by wiring them (remotely or directly) to their planes, tanks, or computers

The 'Metabolic Dominance and Engineered Tissue' program is aimed at being able to artificially pump up soldier endurance and muscle strength.

The 'Continuous Assisted Perfomance' program hopes to find biotechnological ways (implants, metabolic manipulation, etc) to make it possible to push exhausted soldiers on without loss of performance for up to seven days without sleep.

The 'Persistence in Combat' program is a self-treatment scheme which would include pain-reducing and blood-stopping devices and techniques soldiers would apply to their own wounds -even moderately severe ones- thereby bypassing the need for a medic and enabling a soldier to keep fighting, despite serious wounds!

Saturday, 23 August 2003

In Hawaii there is a bell rock so called because when you strike it it's said to give out a clear sweet tone like the sound of a bell. It is also supposed to be a magic rock. If you stand on it at night, strike it, and wish to see the poki, he will soon appear in the sky or stretched out on the mountains. Sometimes he's described as cloud-like or dog-like.

according to one of the tabloids today, with a front page heading entitled "has coronation street gone too far this time?", the lovely todd character is due to get it on with the lovely nicky (brother of his girlfriend). according to the article the boy on boy KISS will be shown after the 9pm watershed. coronation street is never normally on at that time, but obviously we must protect our children from the deadly art of kissing at all costs.

Thursday, 21 August 2003

Maybe the most curious bird of all is the Safat. She is supposed to spend all her time flying and never comes to rest. As she soars, usually high, she lays her eggs which hatch while they are falling through the air. Only the shells reach the ground, and if part of a shell is eaten by an animal, the animal will go mad.

Scientists at the institution have just been awarded a £1.3 million grant to develop the "ubiquitous computing" technology which uses tiny semiconductor specks that can sense, compute and communicate without wires. Researchers are already working with staff at Edinburgh hospitals to develop a method of using the computers to monitor heart patients at home. They plan to spray the nano computers on to the chests of coronary patients, where the tiny cells would record a patient’s health and transmit information back to a hospital computer.
(via my analog life)

the military reconnaissance robot being developed at a British lab can keep moving even if it gets damaged on the battlefield. When any of the snake-like robot's "muscle" segments are damaged, clever software "evolves" a different way for it to wriggle across any terrain.
(via newscientist)

US admits cameraman was shot dead at close rangeThe American army admitted that its soldiers killed an award-winning Reuters cameraman. Mazen Dana, a Palestinian, was shot dead by a US tank crew at close range while trying to film outside Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison on Sunday, after a mortar attack on the prison.

The Americans claimed that the soldiers mistook the camera Mr Dana was holding for a rocket-propelled grenade launcher - a claim that was immediately rejected by journalists who witnessed the killing.
(via news insider)

"The Bush/Cheney administration has moved quickly to ensure US corporate control over Iraqi resources at least through the year 2007. The first part of the plan, created by the UN under US pressure is the Development Fund for Iraq which is being controlled by the US and advised by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The second is a recent Bush executive order that provides absolute legal protection for U.S. interests in Iraqi oil."

"Hours after the UN endorsed US control of the 'Development Fund' for Iraq, Bush signed an executive order that was spun as implementing Resolution 1483, but in reality, went much further towards attracting investment and minimizing risk for US corporations in Iraq."

"Executive Order 13303 decrees that 'any attachment, judgment, decree, lien, execution, garnishment, or other judicial process is prohibited, and shall be deemed null and void', with respect to the Development Fund for Iraq and "all Iraqi petroleum and petroleum products, and interests therein."

"In other words, if ExxonMobil or ChevronTexaco touch Iraqi oil, it will be immune from legal proceedings in the US. Anything that could go, and elsewhere has gone, awry with U.S. corporate oil operations will be immune to judgment: a massive tanker accident; an explosion at an oil refinery; the employment of slave labor to build a pipeline; murder of locals by corporate security; the release of billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The President, with a stroke of the pen, signed away the rights of Saddam's victims, creditors and of the next true Iraqi government to be compensated through legal action. Bush's order unilaterally declares Iraqi oil to be the unassailable province of U.S. corporations."

In defense of the Patriot ActAttorney General John Ashcroft launched a national tour Tuesday in defense of the controversial USA Patriot Act, signed into law six weeks after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Ashcroft's tour of more than 12 US cities in the next month coincides with a new Justice Department web site, www.lifeandliberty.gov, aimed at "dispelling some of the major myths perpetuated as part of the disinformation campaign" by critics of the act.

Complaints have come from Democrats, civil rights groups, and more recently, certain Republican circles. Last month, the House passed a bill by a 309-118 vote to eliminate funding for the "sneak-and-peak" powers – whereby authorities can break into private homes and offices without issuing warrants – authorized under the law. Rep. Butch Otter (R) of Idaho authored the bill.

Meanwhile, three states and more than 140 cities and towns across the country have passed resolutions critical of the Patriot Act. A bill has recently been introduced in the House to exclude bookstore and library records from being subpoenaed by law enforcement officials without

Critics, however, who are already opposed to the law's wide scope, fear an even broader future law. A draft of the so-called Patriot Act II, which would give law enforcement officials even greater access to private records, began circulating this winter. Now, it seems, other off-shoots are forming. ABCNEWS.com has obtained a draft of a new measure – called the Vital Interdiction of Criminal Terrorist Organizations Act of 2003, or VICTORY Act – which would give law enforcement officials increased subpoena powers, and more leeway over both wire-tap evidence and classifying some drug offenses as terrorism.
(via news insider)

In his book Information Anxiety, Richard Wurman estimates that a single weekday edition of The New York Times “contains more information than the average person was likely to come across in a lifetime in seventeenth-century England.”

John Naisbitt writes in Megatrends “some scientists claim it takes less time to do an experiment than to find out whether or not it has been done before.” Clearly, this meta-research (the act of researching research) distracts from the goal of progress.

An artificial intelligence (AI) with at least human-equivalent cognitive powers would be able to handle larger amounts of data chunks, assuming it was designed to do so. The maximum amount of chunks would only be limited by memory size and bus speed. Thus, an average human can hold a single phone number in active memory while an AI could easily hold an entire phone book in active memory.

"despite their talents the humanoids that have made news the past few years—Asimo, Grace, Kismet— look like a robots. They're sometimes appealing in a cartoonish sort of way, but they're metallic, awkward, clunky.

Not David Hanson's heads.

"It's a backless head, bolted to a wooden platform, but it's got a face, a real face, with soft flesh-toned polymer skin and finely sculpted features and high cheekbones and big blue eyes....... . . it moves. It looks left and right. It smiles. It frowns, sneers, knits its brows anxiously......The head's got 24 servomotors, he says, covering the major muscles in the human face. It's got digital cameras in its eyes, to watch the people watching it, and new software will soon let the head mimic viewers. Its name is K-Bot, and it's modeled after Kristen Nelson, his lab assistant."
via transhuman institute

"he found a fantastic picture of Enoch Powell MP on a pogo stick, and so decided to write to a load of MPs and Peers, to see whether any of them had ever been on other forms of children's locomotive toys (ie Skateboards, Roller skates, Space Hoppers etc etc.)

Much to his amazement over 80 of them responded, including three Prime Ministers, five Chancellors, six Foreign Secretaries, four Home Secretaries, and three Speakers of the House of Commons."
(via jaded)

2: the brother of a victim in the lockerbie disaster is rejecting the multi-million pound compensation deal because he believes it has not been proved that libya is truly reponsible for the attack, and that accepting the deal will prevent any further inquiry into THE REAL STORY.

3: in a list of statistics its reckoned that as much as 76% of 'young people' (i assume they mean teenagers or children) "trust the police to tell the truth." that 58% of teenage boys don't worry about wether or not the girl is enjoying herself when having sex. and that 51% of teenage boys don't think its possible for them to catch gonnorrhora.

4: theres an article on pro-anorexia sites and the fact that people try to close these sites down. when will it get through that FREEDOM (that overly hyped concept that we supposedly keep going to war for) has to include things we don't agree with. freedom isn't just about the nice things in life. and as this article points out the pro-anorexia sites give valuable insights into people with eating obsessions (yes that includes you Atkins's dieting sheep)

5: in america women are having their toes surgically shortened to fit into the latest narrow shoes. ((though the emphasis in the observer article was on designer vaginas. toe trimming articles here and here)

6: prescriptions for children on ritalin now over 250,000. "once every 6 months we see the psychiatrist, some medication is thrown at us, and thats it".

Friday, 15 August 2003

in San Francisco at least eight Starbucks had glue slathered over the windows to make it difficult to see inside, in what authorities called a coordinated effort to fool people into thinking the stores had closed.

The culprits went as far as to stick "closed" and "for lease" signs and notices on the stores -- using bogus Starbucks Corp. letterhead -- announcing that "thousands of retail locations worldwide" were closing, and the Seattle- based company was "making room for local coffee bars."

The fraudulent flyers reading "message from Starbucks Corporation" and bearing the name of the company's senior vice president of corporate responsibility, read: "The global economy requires a relentless substitution of quantity over quality and shareholder value over human values," it read. "At our current market level, Starbucks cannot in good conscience guarantee all of our beans meet both our rigorous quality standards as well as our commitment to social responsibility. We are moving over and making room for local coffee bars."

Listening Post is an art installation that culls text fragments in real time from thousands of unrestricted Internet chat rooms, bulletin boards and other public forums. The texts are read (or sung) by a voice synthesizer, and simultaneously displayed across a suspended grid of more than two hundred small electronic screens.
(via my analog life)

At HollywoodIsCalling.com for just $19.95, you can expect to hear from one bona fide, if slightly faded, celebrity wishing you Happy Halloween, get well soon, or congratulations on your retirement. Whether It's For A Special Occasion Or Just For The Fun It, There's No Better Way To Impress A Client, A Sweetheart Or A Friend Than To Have A Celebrity Call.

50 million American and Canadian citizens experience a minor simulation of the nightmare conditions that the US/British bombing of Iraq's infrastructure has caused for the Iraqi people.

Mayor Mike Bloomberg said on the radio that the city had set up emergency shelters and they put the addresses on the city's web site. doh!

and with no electricity, many "bloggers" were forced to post their latest musings to the Internet by candlelight. Some resorted to using old-fashioned kerosene-fueled personal computers. Others wrote their thoughts out longhand on paper then ran through the streets reading them aloud to the passing crowds of stranded commuters.

Eigenradio - The top 20 singular values all day, every day!
Eigenradio analyzes the frequency content of 20+ stations at once, and mashes it, via math, into music. When you're tuned in to Eigenradio, you always know that you're hearing the latest, rawest, most statistically separable thing you can possibly put in your ear.

Hundreds of Iraqis civilians are being held in makeshift jails run by US troops - many without being charged or even questioned. And in these prisons are children whose parents have no way of locating them. Jonathan Steele reveals the grim reality of coalition justice in Baghdad.

meanwhile: The CIA was yesterday interrogating a man accused of being al-Qaida's most senior leader. (for 'interrogating' read 'torturing'). President George Bush told marines at a military base outside San Diego. "He is no longer a problem to those of us who love freedom" (for 'freedom' read 'consumer-freedom'.)

The Internet Archive Wayback Machine puts the history of the World Wide Web at your fingertips. The Archive contains over 100 terabytes and 10 billion web pages archived from 1996 to the present. explore the web of yesterday.
(via the study of design)

Have you ever come across an abandoned building or railway tunnel and had an uncontrollable urge to go inside and have a look? Do you have a need to go places where you are not allowed? then check out Infiltration,the online magazine about going places you're not supposed to go. Infiltration offers a mix of the practice and theory of urban exploration in areas not designed for public usage.
(via jaded journal)

"I hope the air-conditioning is going to work rather more effectively,"said Lord Hutton as he took his seat yesterday morning, during the inquiry into the events surrounding the death of Dr David Kelly, in Court 73 of the Royal Courts of Justice. "If anybody would like to take off a jacket, please feel entirely free to do so."

But no one did apparently. what i want to know is why the fuck anybody would be wearing a jacket during a heatwave in the first place.

Margaret Somerville says that the reason that we shouldn't permit gay marriage is that, "Social features are open to change. Inherent, natural ones are not. Marriage, like many important social institutions, is a combination of natural reality (the biology of procreation) and social construct (the culture that nurtures and supports procreation)." In other words, though Somerville is far too suave to phrase it this way, homosexual relationships are unnatural.

All this monogamous, nuclear family death-till-we-part stuff is recent flummery forced on us by culture and religion, and is about as natural as monastic celibacy, flush toilets and reading.

The real task here is to build a society that maximizes the full potential of the personalities of its citizens, not a society that builds some ludicrous cargo cult totem to a mythical natural order. Human institutions are meant to serve human needs and interests, so why does the state get involved in marriage in first place? Human interests and relationships need protection, not procreation -- the human race would keep procreating without legal ties just fine.

Canada, I salute you. By legalizing gay marriage -- while the US Supreme Court gets death threats for just saying sodomy shouldn't be a felony -- you and the rest of the industrialized world show that there is still hope for humanism and liberal democracy. Now, while we try to catch up in the States, you and Europe need to take the next step and recognize that the state has no business dictating how many people should be allowed into these contracts and what they should entail.

We must carry the rational human design of human institutions to its conclusion, despite the frenzied opposition of those to whom Nature or God have revealed the way things are supposed to be. "Well, yeah gay marriage is one thing," they'll probably say in a couple of years, "but them thar polyamorous child-rearing contracts, that just ain't natch-u-ral."Right. That's what makes them human.
(via better humans)
see also THE POPE IS A CUNT

Tuesday, 12 August 2003

In aboriginal cultures, there was a vampire-like being, described as a little red man, approximately four feet tall, with a very large head and mouth. It has no teeth and swallowed its food whole. Its most distinguishing features were it hands and feet. It tips of the fingers and toes were shaped like the suckers of an octopus.

The yara-ma-yha-who lived in the tops of fig trees and did not hunt for food, but waited until unsuspecting victims sought shelter under the tree. It then jumped down and placed its hands and feet on the body. It would drain the blood from the victim to the point the person was left weak and helpless, but rarely, to cause the victim to die. The creature would later return and consume its meal. It then drank water and took a nap. When it woke, the undigested portion of its meal would be regurgitated. According to the story, the person regurgitated was still alive, and children were advised to offer no resistance should it be their misfortune to meet a yara-ma-yha-who. Their chances of survival were better if they let the creature swallow them.

People might be captured on several occasions. Each time, they would grow a little shorter until they were the same size as the yara-ma-yha-who. Their skin would first become smooth and then they would begin to grow hair all of their body. Gradually they were changed into one of the mythical little furry creatures of the forest.

grant morrison"The last time I was in a comic store, I smelled a stale, dread-inducing fog of middle-aged smugness from the monthly comics on the racks. With a few exceptions, they seemed old and creepy and out of touch, like relics from some war or other."
via linkmachinego

Ehrenreich, whose new book Global Women examines what she claims is an unrecognised people trade, told the Edinburgh Book Festival that many of the benefits feminism had brought to middle-class women in the west had been paid for by the enslavement of poor migrant women. "We women in the rich countries work, so we need someone else to do the work at home and look after our children."

Feminism had badly failed these poor and migrant women, she insisted. "We thought entirely in terms of reforming men....... in the west, feminism may have made great gains for middle-class women, but the other 70% who are still doing stereotypical female jobs have not seen much change."

She said the governments of poor countries often used the money sent home by migrant women workers as a way to do nothing about poverty.

the foreword 1946:
when the 5th marquess of lansdowne wrote to the times suggesting that the 1st world war should be concluded with a compromise, as most wars of the 18th century had been, the editor refused to print it.

folowing the war, in the 1920s and 30s, it was taken for granted that art has a social content and that artists ought to work for social change. dada, in essence, was revolt against war. none of those artists could bring themselves to work for the rebuilding of a society that had proven itself so morally bankrupt and they rejected all accepted values because those values had all succumbed to rabid militarism. ilya ehrenburg said "dadaism has more to do with the battle of the somme, with uprisings and putsches....than with what we usually consider art."

statism
to deal with confusion, power has been centralised and government control increased.

round pegs in square holes tend to have dangerous thoughts about the social system and to infect others with their discontents.a fully researched and developed science of human differences is needed, enabling government managers to assign and repeatedly confirm the proper places of any given individual in the social and economic heirachy.

THE PROBLEM OF HAPPINESS
THE PROBLEM OF MAKING PEOPLE LOVE THEIR SERVITUDE.
a really efficient state would be one in which the all powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude. ensuring that enough people love it is the task assigned to ministries of propaganda, newspaper editors, and schoolteachers.

great is the truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth.

Satisfied Pentagon plans to repeat "embedding"The US defence department's chief spokesperson, Victoria Clarke, has said the Pentagon was very happy with the outcome of the "embedding" of some 700 journalists with US military units during the war in Iraq. During a conference on 17 June on news coverage during the war, she said people appreciated the embedding and would like to do it again. She added that more journalists should be brought into this process next time, especially foreign journalists.
( via reporters without borders )

in order to bring about a personal revolution in human minds and bodies a greatly improved technique of suggestion is needed.

TV requires accessibility or it loses its viewers (and advertising revenue). minimum perplexity is allowed in programme making. contentment rather than the growth of the viewer is paramount.
TV teaching is almost always story telling, not exposition, or the trad instruments of reasoned discourse. minimum arguments, hypotheses, discussion, reasons, refutations.
TV is considered best if the prog is a complete package...easy to enter.....no warning that if you haven't seen the last one then this one will be meaningless.

Sunday, 10 August 2003

WATER

in the context of a brief discussion about impending global water shortages, my step father said sarcastically: "next time we have a glass of water we'll have to think about the whole world."

the curiosity of his statement lies in the fact that, as with most right-wing passive consumers, (a) global awareness and responsibility is an entirely new concept to him and (b) it is a concept that he can't ever possibly imagine as being in the least bit serious or worth considering.

Friday, 8 August 2003

This is a site that recommends books (fiction and poetry published since 1995) based on you choosing from a sliding scale of descriptions - from safe to disturbing, beautiful to disgusting, optimistic to bleak, etc. It then produces a list of books that match your criteria with short reader critiques for you to choose from( via green fairy )

A remote control robot with a computer screen for a head, a video camera for eyes and speakers for a mouth is being tested to facilitate communication between patients and physicians.

The robot is directly linked to a real doctor who uses the robot as ears, mouth and eyes. Studies have found that patients like using teleconferencing technology in addition to regular bedside visits to communicate with physicians.

"Any technology that facilitates communication between patients and physicians is welcome by both," says Louis Kavoussi, a professor of urology and a pioneer in robotic surgery based at John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, where the robot is being tested.

for the past few months some ants have been living in one of my indoor plant pots. there only ever appears to be about 5 or 6 of them, based in a medium sized pot. their numbers don't seem to have increased, fueling my optimism that they're an autonomous anarchist ant commune who won't be breeding. in their current numbers they don't cause me any bother, so they're welcome enough to hang around.

"I decided that movies were doing comics so well there was no point in doing comics to look like movies any more. Let's make this stuff really crazy... so that special effects have to keep up with us."

"I know lots of comic book people who are smarter, funnier, sexier, more well-travelled and more erudite talkers than any number of "stars." I'd rather watch Peter Milligan or Seth Fisher or Chris Weston on a talk show than Justin fucking Timberlake. I'd rather be entertained by Mark Millar or Frank Quitely or Tom Peyer or Mark Waid or....anybody except the mind-numbing Cristal drinking "celebs" on TV."( via linkmachinego )

"steve was released the other night after spending 4 days in police custody. he was brought back down to newquay where he had previously failed to show up in court. he has been conditionally discharged for this. he is now hitchhiking his way back up to scotland(clothed) to resume the naked walk."

i've said it a million times before and i'll say it again.....THE UNCLOTHED HUMAN BODY IS NOT A CRIMINAL ACT

AND ITS A TERRIBLE THING TO EVER BELIEVE THAT THE VISIBLE BODY COULD BE A CRIME.

also in this past week i've visited a number of online photo sites and photologs where nudity is banned in order to keep the sites child friendly.while all available evidence suggests that non-sexual nudity is not harmful to children, your honour.

the continuing propagation of the twisted and anachronistic notion of bodily sin and shame is a true sickness of plague proportions in our society.

if nothing else the purely biological human body is taking its final curtain call in the world and we should learn to value it before it can only be viewed in a museum where it belongs.

this blog is one year old. though i nearly wasn't able to write a post today as my electric key meter had run out, 2 days before any money is due. i've borrowed £10 so now i am able to write, surf, cook, smoke and turn lights on and off to my hearts content.

and yet on friday night's "newsnight review" there was some media droid who not only believed it was credible to question wether mike nelson's work was art, but who also ....and i'm not making this up.... stated that real artistic merit lies in painting and drawing.

then on saurday's "fame academy" one of the judges advised a competitor that he had too many different performance styles and he needed to narrow it down to one "true" style.

and worst of all, in sunday's observer newspaper, there was yet another version of the "is-it-art" non-debate in a most conservative and ill researched report concerning stellarc's plans to have an ear grafted onto his arm. it even quoted someone's fear that art students might copy him. thats the least they fucking should be doing. for fucks sake, if you're going to write about contemporary art at least pretend to be aware of the times in which we're actually living. the here and the now.

Efforts to overcome blindness with artificial devices could receive a boost from a new approach that uses analog chips instead of digital chips to replace defective areas in the human retina, the optic nerve and the wiring of the brain itself.

this week marks my first full year within the blogosphere. last night i celebrated the occaision by cooking dinner for some friends.

we ate: toasted almonds; arame seaweed; a mixture of black and green rice; and a tomatoe-onion and vegetable stock sauce; piled onto a bed of steamed whole cabbage leaves; with a garnish of tinned sliced peaches; and sprouted pulses.

in a decisive break with British traditions that religion and government should not mix, Tony Blair is to allow Christian organisations and other 'faith groups' a central role in policy-making.

the longest continually serving Labour Prime Minister in history has set up a ministerial working group in the Home Office charged with injecting religious ideas 'across Whitehall'. this reflects his own deeply felt beliefs that answers to most questions can be found in that ancient story book the Bible.

i've heard that the print run on the ikea catalogue outstrips the bible. surely the populist answers lie in there.

Saturday, 2 August 2003

Artist Roman Opalka has painted "time" exclusively since 1965. Not using symbols as clocks or calendar dates, he paints a sequence of numbers to represent the passing of time.

The canvas size, height and style of digits never changes. Opalka has now passed the five million mark with over 200 paintings, spending more than half of his life on this single oeuvre. It will be completed only when he dies.

He records the numbers as he counts in Polish, his mother tongue, and photographs his face at the end of each day’s painting session. The number paintings, photos, sound and texts are all elements Opalka uses for his installations on time. The name of this art work is: OPALKA 1965/ 1-oo

Friday, 1 August 2003

The creator god of the African Bushmen, Kaang is said to have made all things, but met with such opposition in the world that he went away. He is regarded as the god of natural phenomena, present in all things, but especially the mantis and caterpillar. Receiving disobedience from the first men he had created, Kaang sent fire and destruction to Earth, and removed his abode into the top of the sky.

Kaang has many myths attached to him, and is almost figured as an epic hero himself. One of the myths concerns his being eaten by an ogre, who then vomited him back up. Another relates to the occasion that he was killed by thorns. The ants picked his bones clean, but Kaang reassembled his skeleton and rose again.

Mike Newdow is the Plaintiff in a lawsuit to remove the words "under God" from the american Pledge of Allegiance.

the american Constitution forbids government from endorsing religious views. The First Amendment states "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion."

yet in 1954 the Pledge was changed and "under God" was bolted into a promise which had previously embraced all Americans. it is a pledge that is recited in public schools throughout the land. Thus, the government indoctrinates every schoolchild - every school day of the year - with a belief in God, and a belief that america, as an entity, is one "under God."

"Placing a religious ideal into the pledge serves no purpose except to alter a purely patriotic tradition into one that satisfies the religious bent of the majority. That is exactly what the First Amendment was written to preclude."

They thrive without oxygen, growing in salty, alkaline conditions. They're a new species of organism, isolated by scientists at the National Space Science and Technology Center (NSSTC) in Huntsville, Ala.

A British man has been arrested in Morocco on suspicion of being a member of the Islamist group that carried out suicide bomb attacks which killed 44 people in Casablanca in May. The Foreign Office said they found out he and another British man had been held by Moroccan police for six weeks only after making inquiries on behalf of their families.

while back in may, the alleged leader of the bombing attacks, Abdelhaq Bentassir, died shortly after being arrested by police in Fez. Another death, of a philosophy teacher named Mohammed Bunnit whose body appeared in Marrakesh after he had been called to the police station, has also led to questions being asked about how Morocco is going about its crackdown on Islamists.

Al-Quaida's appeal to Muslims 'could be enhanced' . The overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime had not diminished the threat to Britain from either international terrorism or weapons of mass destruction.The war in Iraq might have impeded the fight against terrorism rather than helped it, the Commons foreign affairs committee warned yesterday.

The God of the Lugbara, who dwell in the area between Zaire and Uganda. Adroa had two aspects: good and evil. He was looked on as the creator of heaven and Earth, and was said to appear to a person who was about to die. Adroa was represented as tall and white, with only half a body --- one eye, one ear, one arm, one leg. His children are the Adroanzi.

The lizard creator god of the Aranda of Central Australia. It is said that he found the undeveloped first beings, the Rella manerinja, on the slope of a hill; these beings were in fact two fused together. Mangar-kunjer-kunja separated them with a stone knife, and cut the openings for their eyes, ears, noses and mouths. Next he presented the stone knife, fire, the spear, the shield, the boomerang, and a sacred object called the Tjurunga to his new creatures. Finally he regulated their marriage system.